Microsoft will offer biannual feature updates to Windows 10

Microsoft intends to update Windows 10 biannually from now on. The software giant says that its customers "want more predictability and simplicity" from the update servicing model so it will align updates to Windows 10 with those for Office 365 ProPlus and System Centre Configuration Manager. The update months will be March and September.

With Windows 10 Creators Update still rolling out (it's not been offered to me yet), September seems rather soon for yet another feature update release. Windows Insider Paul Thurrott agrees, calling the biannual schedule "too aggressive", and personally preferring an annual features update. Thurrott had previously predicted that Redstone 3 wouldn't be introduced until November.

Back to the Microsoft announcement, and Bernardo Caldas, the General Manager of Windows Commercial Marketing, wrote that the new predictable update schedule reflects Microsoft's "commitment to help make it easier to deploy and service Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus." The team will continue to look at making Windows and Office deployments easier.

Microsoft's biannual feature updated versions of Windows 10 will be "serviced and supported for 18 months". The theory is that this clockwork schedule and relatively short support periods could encourage more businesses and enterprise to stay up to date with the latest, most secure, releases of Windows.

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They were so close to taking a step in the right direction with this. 6 months is way too short a period. I reckon most users and businesses want stability, and the only way to achieve this is to, funnily enough, not change anything. Annual feature updates would be better, but once every 2 years would be even more preferable IMNSHO.

Does anyone here work in IT? I'm curious as to how Windows 10, with its irregular feature upgrades, has changed the way you guys/gals have to do things compared to previous Windows versions.

afiretruckThey were so close to taking a step in the right direction with this. 6 months is way too short a period. I reckon most users and businesses want stability, and the only way to achieve this is to, funnily enough, not change anything. Annual feature updates would be better, but once every 2 years would be even more preferable IMNSHO.

Does anyone here work in IT? I'm curious as to how Windows 10, with its irregular feature upgrades, has changed the way you guys/gals have to do things compared to previous Windows versions.

Enterprise, Education and Pro can all defer major updates so they don't have to roll out for “several months”, so you may well be able to bypass an upgrade.

We still don't have Anniversary Edition at work, but that may have something to do with me ignoring it in WSUS. :vacant:

As for using Windows 10 in, I'm quite happy. The biggest pain I found was trying to get the start menu layout deployed (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't) but everything is in All Apps anyway. Once I removed all of the Store Apps in the system image (you can also stop their usage through Group Policy) I was quite happy with how things went.

Anyone else remember when Windows 7 was released, and all the Vista users complained bitterly that it was really just a Vista service pack and should've been offered as an update instead of a new OS? ;)

Seems MS can't win - if they roll features into a new OS they've done it wrong, and if they roll out features as an update package they've done it wrong…